Problem:
Our company has the Adobe Font Folio from 4-5 years ago. All the
fonts have worked until the last few weeks. I can't give an exact
date because of the "rush" factor at the office We have 8 seats,
and font uniformity is obviously important. :)

Four of the machines are having problems loading all the fonts. I
attempt to "Add Fonts" in Font Book. Approximately 1/2 to 2/3 of
them are grayed out in that dialog box.

What I have tried:
-Deleted the font files and recopied them from the orginal Adobe CD.

-I have read all the "web wisdom" time allows, and have copied them
back and forth from Library/Fonts to User/Libary/Fonts, etc.

-Double checked the "Ownership and security" settings of the
individual font files. They are open to all users, etc.

I have exhausted things I can think of. I invite any suggestions.
TIA for help!

Take care,
Pat Spencer
System Admin and Sr. Production Artist
Responsible for 4 unhappy Macs. :)

Jim Mitchell

Patrick, Ah yes. Font Book. My least favorite Apple app... The reason 1/2 to 2/3 of the fonts are grayed out when you try to load them via the Open Font menu

Message 2 of 3
, Mar 1 7:26 PM

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Patrick,

Ah yes. Font Book. My least favorite Apple app...

The reason 1/2 to 2/3 of the fonts are grayed out when you try to load them
via the "Open Font" menu option, is that they are the Postscript (printer)
font that goes along with the bitmap/suitcase font. Font Book won't allow
you to select them, but (thankfully) does copy them over along with the
bitmap font (according to my own tests) when you load them.

First thing you may want to try is cleaning out your font caches. You can do
this using my utility, Yasu. (Not a shameless plug, I promise...) It may
clear up the misbehavior.

If that doesn't do the trick, it's time to remove all traces of your Adobe
font collection from each machine. You have to do this both on the hard
disk, AND in Font Book. This is a tricky topic, and it's hard to say exactly
what should be done without seeing your machines. The following are general
steps that I would take based on past experience. That said...

First start in Font Book. Remove all non-Apple typefaces from ALL
collections. You'll be able to tell which ones are Apple faces by the fact
that the "Font type" displayed below the preview window of Font Book will
show "Datafork TrueType" versus "Postscript" or just "TrueType." Keep in
mind that removing typefaces in Font Book will delete them from your hard
drive at the same time. If you delete something you didn't mean to, it's
gone.

Once you've done that, if you've installed your fonts "for all users" of the
computer, you may have to do some further weeding of stragglers in
"/Library/Fonts." You can usually tell the Apple fonts from the rest by
virtue that they will have a ".dfont" or ".ttf" extension on their name.

If you've simply installed your fonts "for this user" in Font Book, then
you're in good shape. You can just remove all remaining fonts from
"/Users/<username>/Library/Fonts."

Then, try clearing the font cache one more time using Yasu and then load
your type faces from the Adobe CD using Font Book. I'd suggest loading them
on a user basis ("for this user only") for each user instead of "for all
users" at once.

That should get you moving in the right direction. I would recommend (from
personal experience) that you might try Extensis Suitcase X11 for font
management, especially if you're in a production environment. I tried
working with Font Book myself and nearly went mad. Suitcase has been a joy
in comparison.

> From: "Patrick Spencer, KD4PWL" <kd4pwl@...>
> Reply-To: <1AppleFreeTech@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 00:10:41 -0000
> To: <1AppleFreeTech@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [1AppleFreeTech] Font Book difficulty
>
>
>
> System:
> -OSX Panther.
> -Ran Software Update this afternoon (I do it daily)
> -2 G5 Imacs and 2 G4 Tower Macs.
>
> Problem:
> Our company has the Adobe Font Folio from 4-5 years ago. All the
> fonts have worked until the last few weeks. I can't give an exact
> date because of the "rush" factor at the office We have 8 seats,
> and font uniformity is obviously important. :)
>
> Four of the machines are having problems loading all the fonts. I
> attempt to "Add Fonts" in Font Book. Approximately 1/2 to 2/3 of
> them are grayed out in that dialog box.
>
> What I have tried:
> -Deleted the font files and recopied them from the original Adobe CD.
>
> -I have read all the "web wisdom" time allows, and have copied them
> back and forth from Library/Fonts to User/Libary/Fonts, etc.
>
> -Double checked the "Ownership and security" settings of the
> individual font files. They are open to all users, etc.
>
> I have exhausted things I can think of. I invite any suggestions.
> TIA for help!
>
> Take care,
> Pat Spencer
> System Admin and Sr. Production Artist
> Responsible for 4 unhappy Macs. :)

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Patrick Spencer, KD4PWL

Thanks Jim! I have run through these steps, and without avail. Your explanation of the matter jives with what I have experienced. I am going to DL a trial run

Message 3 of 3
, Mar 2 5:25 AM

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Thanks Jim!
I have run through these steps, and without avail. Your explanation of the matter jives
with what I have experienced.

I am going to DL a trial run of Suitcase to see what it will do for us.